


Push and pull

by Not_gret



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And more characters too, Chapter three will make you laugh but also cry, Female pronouns for Pidge, Hunk is a good friend, I don’t even know where in the series this would be taking place, I don’t know it’s slangs and it’s food, I forgot to mention there’s cursing, I love oblivious Keith as much as the next person but, I may be Latina but I’m Mexican so I don’t know shit about cuba, I’m gonna add more tags as I go, Lance might be a little bit ooc, M/M, No one dies though, One alien shark oc but he’s only mentioned, So I’m going to try my best but don’t expect much, also, anyways welcome to the shitshow, au where the castle isn’t destroyed, character injury, i really wanted to experiment with the theme of them knowing, if not I’ve failed as a writer, lance is impossible, pidge shiro and allura appear up until chapter 3, thats why it’s rated that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-18 06:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_gret/pseuds/Not_gret
Summary: So, Keith wasn’t stupid and him liking lance and being bitter about it was completely unrelated as to why he was sitting in the kitchen and eating space goo.He didn’t even stop when the lights were turned on and he heard a scream coming from the doorway.-or the one where hunk is a good friend to Keith and gives him advice at like 4 am--now has multiple chapters, so it’s not complete-





	1. What if’s

**Author's Note:**

> So. Another klance story. I swear whenever I’m in a slump I just write my favorite bois and suddenly I have magical hands. I might add a few more chapters to this I dunno yet. Comments and criticism is always welcomed as are kudos bc this autor is an attention whore but she also appreciates reads.

Keith wasn’t stupid. He knew that what he felt for the blue paladin wasn’t just friendship. He also knew Lance had similar feelings towards him, after all, the way lance looked at him was in no way platonic.  
So, they should have been dating by now, right? By now, keith should’ve confessed or asked him out or something, right?  
But they weren’t dating and Keith would rather die than admit that he liked him.  
And the reason was simple, really: Lance was busy pretending he hated Keith and Keith was busy reciprocating.  
See? Pretty simple. They weren’t dating because they didn’t want to...  
Okay, so maybe Keith kind of did, but so what? He could live with a heart full of tiny fissures and cracks (Becasue it sure as fuck wasn’t broken!). He could leave with lance smiling softly at him, right after they managed to free a planet and the crowd celebrated with yells of victory and Lance’s eyes sparkled, because that was another thing about him: Lance always conveyed his emotions with his full body. If he was nervous, his knee would bounce up and down and his finger would tap whatever surface they were on and sometimes that surface was Keith’s knee. And if he was sad his body would hunch down, his eyes dulled and the smile never quite reached, his arms covering his body, but most importantly he would lean his weight on something else, sometimes (most times) that something else would be Keith’s shoulders.  
And god forbid he spoke about how Lance was when he was happy, his whole being practically glowing, to the point where, if they were actually dating and Keith had a personality more similar to lance, Keith may just have jokingly covered his eyes in an effort to “shield his eyes from the sun itself”...  
What were we talking about again?  
Right. Keith was completely fine without Lance. The viscious feeling of jealousy whenever lance flirted with an alien or Allura? He drowned it with the sweat and exhaustion that came from sword fighting.  
The way his heart clenched when lance pulled away before they got too close? Buried under layers of anger and ‘nope’s.  
Keith was perfectly fine, thank you very much.  
So, Keith wasn’t stupid and him liking lance and being bitter about it was completely unrelated as to why he was sitting in the kitchen and eating space goo.  
He didn’t even stop when the lights were turned on and he heard a scream coming from the doorway.  
“Oh my god. Okay. It’s just you.” Hunk had a hand over his chest and the other on the doorway, trying to calm himself. “...Keith? What were you doing anyways?”  
Hunk asked once he regained his composure, confusion in his voice.  
“What does it look like I’m doing?”  
Keith answered, raising his spoon to prove his point. Hunk didn’t seem phased by the hostile tone in Keith’s words  
“Right. But why were you eating in complete darkness?”  
Hunk began searching the kitchen, looking for two glasses. Keith only grumbled, not really wanting to talk about it.  
“Is it like a galra keith thing?” Hunk tried to get Keith talking, it only got him a growl. “Not the time, huh? Sorry.”  
He sent him an apologetic smile and then settled a glass of water in front of him.  
“...It kind of is a galra thing.” Keith ended up saying because, as pissed as he was, Hunk didn’t deserve to deal with Keith’s bullshit. “I can see in the dark, apparently.”  
Keith elaborated.  
“Oh man, that is so cool. Doesn’t explain why you chose not to turn on the lights but, still pretty cool”  
Hunk said, not pushing it. Not asking anything. Just stood there, didn’t even try to connect it or bring Lance’s name into this, for fucks sake! It wasn’t like they were subtle about things. Everyone in the castle knew they had a thing for each other. Fuck! Everyone in the goddamn universe knew it. But nooo! Lance was a fucking dickhead.  
And yeah, so maybe Hunk didn’t deserve to deal with Keith’s bullshit, but the man was a comforting person, okay?  
“...It’s just.” Keith paused dropping his spoon in his plate. “Lance.”  
He summarized his problem. Hunk nodded.  
“Lance.”  
“You... you know what I mean? He’s just always so-you know? And he is...too fucking much. And I can’t-And it’s pretty obvious, yeah?”  
“That you two flirt and act like you’re a thing? Yeah, the only one who didnt know was pidge but that was like...” hunk counted with his fingers. “Wow, it’s been almost three months since she figured it out”  
Keith let out a frustrated groan.  
“Why is he so-“ Keith waved his hand as if that would help him find the right word.  
“-so Lance?”  
“So Stubborn?”  
They ended up saying at the same time. Hunk nodded.  
“Look, I get what you mean, Lance can be a handful sometimes. Truth be told I can never understand what is going on inside his head, as a matter of fact I can never tell what he’s doing. Lance is the most unpredictable person I’ve ever met and his reasoning is so complicated and tangled up I seriously can’t understand- where was I going with this? I had a point”  
Hunk said more to himself. Keith groaned.  
“A-anyways. Lance isn’t stupid. He’ll realize some day he can’t run from his feelings.” Hunk rushed to say, and then as an afterthought: “I hope. He does hate confrontation”  
Keith breathed in, because he knew Hunk was trying to help, and it would be a shit thing to do to take things out on him. Still he was exasperated because he also knew lance and so he knew that Lance was the king of denial. As far as Keith was concerned Lance would keep him waiting forever. They would become ghosts and Lance would still act like he doesn’t like Keith. He sighed.  
“What should I do, Hunk?”  
Keith asked despite himself and head hanging low.  
Hunk let out a distressed noise, fumbling with the empty glass in his hands and then, a sigh escaped him.  
“Look I don’t know if I should tell you this but...um... I saw light coming from the observatory. I dunno, though.”  
And yeah, it was pretty obvious what Hunk was explaining. So he waited until hunk left to put away his stuff in the sink, trying to build up courage with each step. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.  
Except for the fact that Keith was a fucking idiot, and whatever thought on his head of talking shit out with Lance and maybe even making out was completely thrown out the window the minute Keith saw him.  
It wasn’t the fact that Lance was gorgeous, and the blue light coming from the castle hit his face revealing sharp and handsome angles, no. Keith was way past that feeling, whenever he looked at Lance he never felt butterflies in his stomach or ants running through his arms, but rather warmth engulfed him like he was home.  
“Hey, buddy.”  
Keith called to him, any previous irritation gone completely when he saw Lance’s serious face, the wrinkle in his brow and the tired eyes that widened in surprise when Keith walked in.  
“Hey, man.”  
Lance answered back, returning his sight to the windows. Thousands of stars surrounding the castle. Keith walked up next to him and then he sat. Neither said a thing for a while; lance was to busy focusing his eyes on the white dots that acted like freckles across the dark of space, Keith to busy trying to figure out the other boy.  
“You know, back on earth i used to know every constellation.”  
He said, leaning his body on Keith’s shoulder.  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. I was a huge stars geek. My cousins and nephews always came to me to ask me about constellations and stuff.”  
Keith hummed, considering if it would be appropriate to grab Lance’s hand to comfort him or if it would freak him out.  
“Back home shiro would sometimes visit the shack I lived in. He knew some constellations but we were both shit so we just invented our own.”  
Keith said. Lance snorted, but his smile was a sad one, twisted and all kinds of wrong on him because in Keith’s humble opinion Lance deserved to be happy, so if whatever magical thing that was behind their destiny could fuck right off and give anything and everything to lance that would be great.  
“That sounds like fun. Maybe we could do that now, considering everything here is unknown. Different” Lance said, he wasn’t looking at Keith. Not once since he sat down. “I miss earth. I miss my family.”  
Lance finally said, his voice cracking and yeah, maybe that was Keith’s heart breaking.  
“You’ll get to see them soon enough, you’ll see.”  
Keith tried comforting, passing an arm through Lance’s shoulders.  
“What if I won’t. What if they’re dead or if we die or if going back to earth puts them in danger, Keith? What then?”  
“Nothing will happen-“  
“What if I don’t want to see them?”  
Lance muttered, barely above a whisper but still enough to make Keith stop dead on his tracks.  
“Why wouldn’t you want to see them?”  
Keith would like to say his voice came out calm and collected, but he couldn’t deny there was a hint of worry in his voice.  
“Because. What if they don’t know me anymore. What if they moved on and it turns out i was never important. What if they hate me for leaving I-“  
“They won’t.”  
Keith said, grabbing Lance by the shoulders and forcing eye contact, deep sad brown eyes looking at his fiercer ones.  
“But-“  
“They. Won’t”  
Keith bit out. If they so much as looked at lance the wrong way, blood would run... okay, maybe not, because they were still Lance’s family, but they would know Keith’s fury.  
“What if you leave?”  
Lance said, one hand grabbing Keith’s arm, Lance’s words taking him by surprise.  
“What?”  
“What if I don’t want to go back because I’m afraid I won’t see you ever again?”  
Keith was taken aback, maybe even panicking.  
“Lance, you-“  
“Forget it. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Forget i said anything” Lance stood up, shaking Keith’s hands from his shoulders.  
Wait a minute. That motherfucker. No, over Keith’s dead body, Lance was not going to run away from another bonding moment or so help him  
“Lance.”  
Keith called out to him, standing from his seat.  
“Thanks for keeping me company, mullet.”  
The tall fucker said.  
“Lance!”  
Lance didn’t stop walking, disappearing into the hallway. Keith was going to murder him. This should be fucking illegal. Being buddy-buddy one minute and then distant. Who the fuck- how dare that motherfucker- that prick.


	2. Words barely above a whisper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is in denial and Keith crushes everything lance has built being his handsome self, god damnit keith.

Contrary to popular belief, Lance wasn’t an idiot.   
Or, okay, maybe he kind of was but at least he was emotionally smart. He knew what he was feeling almost always and he was definitely aware of others.   
And Lance had proof, after all, his abuelita had always said Lance was an empath, told him that the reason why he had so many headaches when he was younger was because he could feel what others felt.   
And yeah, okay maybe the empath part was a load of bull (he would know, his abuelita took him to a meditation class to “protect himself from outer auras” and the only thing that happened was Lance getting frustrated because he couldn’t just NOT think), but his whole family agreed Lance always knew what he was feeling.  
So, the point here is, Lance wasn’t stupid. He knew what he felt for the red paladin and he also knew that Keith felt somewhat similar to him, and everything about it was terrifying.  
And maybe it was for the fact that until he met Keith, Lance had never in his life been afraid of love, he craved it even. Always trying to look for it in the way his mom had bought him a captain America lunchbox, or in how Veronica had taken him to an arcade even though he had been grounded.   
Lance embraced love. But what he felt for Keith? No, he wasn’t ready to accept that.   
And it wasn’t for the fact that he grew up in a religious place, although it did freak him out when he found out he liked Keith, but that was because of one bad experience that would end with Luis taking him out for ice cream and giving him life advice about his sexuality.   
He was afraid of loving Keith because... because it was Keith. There was no way that whatever it is that was between them was going to end well. Because despite everything, Lance knew he was a mess and Keith was a mess and loving each other would only make a huge, unmanageable mess that would crash and burn and destroy everything and each other.  
And the thing was, lance knew they weren’t meant to be, because lance belonged to earth, with the sea and his family and the rain... and Keith belonged to the universe fighting with his kind, and his mother-  
“With his real family”  
Lance thought bitterly. Keith belonged to the blade of marmora, Lance knew because he saw how the way Keith walked had changed. In space, Keith had more purpose than he did when he was on earth, and lance would be a fool to keep Keith from who he was.   
So yeah, that was why he avoided and treated the other boy like he carried the plague. Because only pain and sadness would follow.   
And he knew this, because even if they were somehow able to stay in touch once they got back, even if pidge was able to find a way to send messages across unexplored space (or at least unexplored for earth, The paladins knew it well) a long distance relationship never worked, he learned this from watching Marco become a mess after he and his girlfriend all the way in Seattle broke up with him because of the distance.  
Lance wasn’t going to do anything with his feelings towards Keith but bury them deep, like some sort of pirate treasure, with thousands of chains and locks and any other security system out there.   
Lance would protect the two of them from potential heartbreak by pretending there was never nothing there.   
It sounded like a good plan, except he really didn’t know how to handle his jealousy. And knowing how to handle jealousy was key in his plan on setting Keith up with some hot alien dude.  
But to be fair, it wasn’t even his fault, okay?  
Sure, yeah, so maybe he was the one who interrupted Keith from talking to that weird shark-looking mofo, so maybe Lance was the one who put an arm over Keith’s shoulders and smoothly took him away. But! The shark-alien-dude wasn’t nearly good enough for someone like Keith. Keith was perfect, after all, and he deserved someone just as perfect. Someone who would fit nicely with him, as he did when he leaned in on Lance’s one-armed embrace.   
Or someone who provided a good challenge, because knowing Keith he always needed excitement in his life. And okay, maybe Lance didn’t know shark-man for more than 5 second but he knew the dude was booooring. Like make that word extra long, because that was what weird-alien-dude was.  
Besides, even if lance couldn’t remember what the mission was they were in this planet for Voltron stuff-shenanigans, not to flirt with random locals. Also, Keith had looked uncomfortable talking to that dude, wanting to get out of that conversation, so what if Lance wanted to be a good paladin ( pal-adins... pala-dude... pala-Bros... whatever.) and a good friend.  
“You okay, dude?”  
Lance asked Keith, trying to focus back on him.  
“Who said I wasn’t?”  
Keith answered, as if he hadn’t just sighed in relief.  
“Seriously? You looked like you would rather shove garbage in your shirt than continue talking with that guy.”  
Lance knew this because, once more he was emotionally smart, and also because he had seen Keith rubbing his thumb against the forefinger. The boy always did that to comfort himself. Keith let out a tire chuckle.  
“Yeah- I guess. I’m just not that good at dealing with people.”  
“You’re telling me.”  
“Jerk” Keith said, but he was smiling. “...it just felt like at any minute I was going to offend them and accidentally start another war.”  
Lance hummed.  
“Yeah, unfortunately not everyone is like pidge and will just laugh off you’re sass.”  
“Wow, thanks. You’re real comforting.”  
Keith answered sarcastically.   
“Only for you, buddy.”  
It wasn’t until that moment that Lance realized he hadn’t let go of Keith’s shoulders ever since. Shit. They looked like some romcom couple stilling in the park and in love. Which was bad because clearly Lance’s life wasn’t a romcom, it was clearly and adventure sci-fi movie and he would later find some hot alien chick that actually liked him for some reason.   
So, because his life wasn’t a romcom with Keith as his co-star, he discretely let go of Keith’s shoulders, wanted to shove his hands in his pockets, except he was wearing paladin armor so he had no option but to leave his arms hanging awkwardly.   
“So, shiro and Allura are done?”  
“Uhh... what?”  
“Back then. You said shiro needed to talk to me”  
And with Keith’s words he remembered why they were even there at all. Right. Voltron. The coalition.  
“Ummm. Yeah, he really didn’t need to?”  
It ended up coming out as more of a question than he had intended. But, in all honesty, it was Keith’s fault. If he hadn’t called lance out on his lie then they could just chill at the castle and wait for shiro, but noooo. Keith had to make everything difficult.  
“What do you mean he didn’t need to?”  
Keith asked, sending him a pointed look. They were still walking towards the castle.  
“I lied, okay. You were looking like a bunch of spiders were crawling up your ass and dude wasn’t anywhere near backing off. I had to come up with something!”  
Lance told him, his tone defensive and never looking at the other boy. It wasn’t until they got to the castle that Lance heard a quiet ‘thanks, man’ and then Keith disappeared, most likely to the training room. And yeah. Maybe he hadn’t done that good of a job at burying his feelings.   
———————————————

“Lance?”   
The voice came from the wall...yeah, okay, Not the wall but the room right next to his... alright, it came from Keith.   
“I’m sleeping”  
Lance answered because he didn’t want to deal with late night talks. He was already stressed enough, he didn’t need more soft Keith to make his life worse (that was a lie, please give him more soft Keith. It was his favorite Keith, when the corners off his lips turned up by just a millimeter in a content smile and the way his eyes just told him how much Keith loved everyone in team voltron it was just... beautiful, a work of art.)  
“You’ve been tapping your fingers for about ten minutes know.”  
Keith’s words came with a tired sigh.   
“Shit. Sorry.”  
Lance said, becoming aware of his fidgeting and trying to stop it.  
“It’s okay.” Lance thought that was the end of it, that Keith had only called to complain to Lance but then “are you nervous?”  
Keith’s voice was muffled, which, yeah, that makes sense, he’s behind a wall after all. Lance can just imagine him. Sitting on his bed, one knee up where he can rest his arms and his head close to the wall. Or maybe he’s laying face up, hand on his chest as it raises and falls. Or maybe he had one hand under his head, laying so that he faced the wall, as if he had x-ray vision and he could look straight at lance. Lance wouldn’t doubt Keith had superpowers. Whoever had been in charge of creating Keith obviously preferred him, giving him a perfect built, perfect face that made even a dumb mullet look nice, and awesome skills both in combat and in flying. Lance then remembered he had been asked a question.  
“What do you think, mullet?” Since lance was met with silence he kept going, because that was what he did. “We’re having a mission. Things always go wrong for us.”  
“It won’t happen this time.”  
“You telling me or yourself?”  
Lance joked, but it ended up being deeper than he actually initially planned and yeah.  
“I... i don’t know. Both? I want everyone to be safe. God knows I’ll do anything to keep you guys safe.”  
Lance never took Keith for the religious type, Or maybe he was just saying ‘god’ casually. He wondered briefly if his mami would accept lance marrying Keith, because there was always the chance that their religion was different and then he felt stupid, because they’re two boys in love, and if his mami can deal with the fact that lance is bi then she can handle lance marrying someone in another religion. And then he felt stupid again because he WASNT going to marry Keith. That was never going to happen because they were never going to date.  
“Don’t do anything stupid out there tomorrow, keith.”  
Lance tells him, because yeah, he knows Keith is willing to do anything for them, including dying.  
“Pot meets kettle.”  
Keith says and lance glares at the wall. He was pretty sure there was a difference between a pot and a kettle, one was more practical while the other was expendable. With that being said, Lance still kept it in the back of his mind. Besides, lance wasn’t just going to let himself die. He liked to think the team would actually grief over him, because yeah, maybe he wasn’t the sharpest, bestest member in the team but he liked to think he was a good friend. Keith on the other hand, seemed to love the idea of dying for those he cared about.  
“Whatever, man.” A pause and then, “you know I’ve got your back.”  
He was already falling asleep, when he heard a soft, “and I yours.”  
And yeah it felt great to know he was that close to someone like Keith.


	3. Flies are universal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance goes on a mission, Lance is lance and shit happens. Also, Keith is pretty

So, the mission had started as usual. Lance was totally paying attention to shiro speak and not spacing out because he was pretty sure he saw a fly (except why was there a fly? How were flies on space? Did they come with someone? Was pidge secretly growing a fly farm? Was that a thing? Where did she get the flies? Wait a minute if a fly was able to get on the castle did that mean cockroaches where roaming too? Or where flies just universal?). Anyways, Lance was perfectly aware of the things that mattered, like Keith was going to fly with him and pidge was going on the green lion. He also knew that his all time baby, blue, was going to be under heavy fighter, so he put it in the back of his mind to give her a nice polishing after the mission. And also to tell Allura, Shiro and Hunk to be careful. Distracting a bunch of galra cruisers was difficult as heck, but he knew the three of them could do it.  
See? He knew what was important. Pidge was going to retrieve some information or hack the galra or fuck shit up or something and Keith and Lance where going to be like her bodyguards, no, wait they were bringing in explosives. So, likely, they were all going to fuck shit up.  
Cool.  
The place was very desert-y looking (deserted? that was probably the right word), cracks on the dry earth and gray ruins surrounding a cloaked galra base. And, yeah, maybe at first he hadn’t known it was a galra base, but then pidge did her brainiac thing and the cloaking stopped working, meaning they had to get into action.  
“You ready?”  
Keith had asked him.  
“Let’s put on a show”  
Lance said then with a confident smile, the cruiser and battle ships already attacking yellow, black and blue. And, if Lance had had the time to admire the fight, he would have said damn, because his friends were putting up one hell of a fight. Lance would have been willing to bet his life those three could totally win against all of them. And apparently he did bet his life, because that’s the universe for you, always taking things literally, but anyways, we’ll get there in a minute.  
The three of them had sneaked in into the galra base, lance at the back, his gun ready and hyper aware of his surroundings. Pidge was in the middle, doing her tech stuff and barely even looking up. Keith was on the front, placing one half-galra hand to help them get in the place and a sword in the other.  
“Alright, keith put your hand here” pidge directed them “Yeah, okay, I’m all set. You go put on the explosives while I work. Remember guys, they need to be set manually, so don’t do anything until I tell you.”  
And Lance was pretty lucky he had managed to get all that. These kind of situations put him on edge.  
“You got it pigeon”  
Lance said and then he and Keith had walked out of the control room and away from each other.  
So, a pretty normal mission. Which brings us to the right now. Where lance was having a blast fighting galra soldiers. Please note that that was sarcasm. Lance was not in fact having a blast. Rather he was blasting as many galra as he could, while also trying to finish his task. The good news was that lance had always been good at multi-tasking, and he thanked his abuelo for constantly making Lance work at the little store he owned, asking him to stock the shelves and also help clients. Man, he could almost taste the sweetness of whatever drink his abuelo got him as payment for helping out.  
He could also hear ringing in his ears and the sound of the bullets (light bullets? Lasers?), as well as Keith’s voice through the comms.  
“I’m almost done over here. Had to-“ a grunt “deal with a few galra. Pidge, Lance what are your statuses?”  
“Uhhh...” was Lance’s reply, but in his defense he was being shot at. “I ran into trouble. Trying to multi-task, right now.”  
“Same over here, I took care of the ones that came here but I still need a little bit more time.”  
“No worries, lancey lance has got this”  
Lance said, like the big fat liar he was, but also because pidge needs reassurance, and you can’t spell reassurance without lance-no Wait. Fuck. It’s not reassurlance. Damn it. It had been such a good one-liner too.  
There was a groan that followed.  
“Please don’t ever-“ a grunt, ”call yourself lancey lance.”  
Keith said, bringing a small smile to Lance’s face. It was short lived, of course, because he was relatively busy. He doesn’t know how he did it, but he managed to put all of the bombs in place... okay so maybe he just shoved the rest on what looked to be the most promising place, who cares? As long as it did it’s job.  
“Hey, pidgeon. I’m done over here. Anytime now”  
Lance said hiding behind a column and looking behind his shoulders.  
“The information is still downloading”  
“I’m done over here too, pidge.”  
“Pidge, Lance, Keith, What’s your status?”  
Shiro’s voice was heard through the comms. He still thought shiro should have taken a few days to rest, right now he probably should be with kaltenecker enjoying a piña colada with his newly made robotic arm (courtesy of hunk and pidge) in the castle’s green room while sitting on a beach chair.. maybe even with a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, but the man insisted on not sitting around and well, this was happening.  
“Lance and I are done setting up explosives.”  
Came Keith’s reply.  
“I’m still not done, I’m gonna need a few more minutes.“  
“Hate to be that guy, but we don’t have minutes, pidge.”  
Lance said, the blasters were hitting dangerously home now, eating the column his back was against. He needed to change positions soon.  
“I KNOW, lance. I’m going as fast as I can.”  
Pidge said.  
“Yeah, okay can you like-“  
The color white in his vision made him clench his teeth and close his eyes to keep the tears from falling. The white was gone in a second and he realized he had let out a restrained Yelp.  
“Lance!”  
The voice belonged to several people and Lance, being an idiot on the floor, thought it was funny how different everyone said his name. Keith’s was a more gruff-y tone while pidge had a sharp layer of worry and anxiousness. Shiro’s was like metal, he was worried, but he couldn’t let panic reign in his voice.  
Lance acted almost immediately, beginning to move with his hands as fast he could to the safety of one of the pillars.  
“Lance, are you okay? Can you continue?”  
Uh... did shiro not hear him yell? No. Lance wasn’t fine. He was shot at! Oh Jesus he was also bleeding.  
“Yeah, I’m just uh... it’s a minor wound”  
Did bullet wounds count as minor wounds? How did doctors determined that? Lance was pretty sure it was minor, because, like, the wound wasn’t that big. Bullet wounds were probably a lot like- like cutting yourself with papers! Yeah. Hurts like a bitch but it’s not like it was that bad.  
Should he have played dead? Maybe he should’ve, that was the one thing Marco taught him. Oh man, he probably should’ve played dead, shit.  
“Pidge, I’m giving you two minutes. If you’re not done by then get out and detonate the explosives, okay?”  
“Roger that.”  
The wound was somewhere around his lower belly, so lance put pressure there because he might be an idiot but he’s not dumb. He remembers that one class about medical something (medical emergency? Medical first aid kit? Medical medicine?)  
The blasters where still shooting, and he was still feeling a lot of pain, some of it on his limbs most of it on that lower part of his abdomen.  
He still reached for his bayard, and sucking in a gust of air he began shooting as many soldiers as he could. It almost reminded him of that one time at the local fair. His mami had been busy that day and had asked one of his siblings to look after him that day. Roni had been the chosen one. The heat that day had been impossible, making rides made out of iron a personal hell for everyone with shorts. Lucky them, though, because lance had always been more interested in the little games that were clearly a trap for overly excited kids. So, roni, who had bought him a pink cotton candy despite him wanting the blue one, took him to a game where you had to shoot ducks-not real ducks, plastic and yellows ducks. He had been so frustrated because he really wanted to win that shark plushy. And then roni took the plastic gun from his tiny hands, and she completely owned the game, earning him the blue shark.  
He was like her now, the galra drones where the ducks, he was going to get a blue shark for himself. He didn’t know what could be the blue shark in the metaphor though. Maybe getting out alive? Yeah, that was a good reward.  
The chaos was still raging full force, the galra base had an alarm blasting, there were so many different laser sounds and both the wall he was leaning on and his suit were beginning to feel uncomfortable. Lance didn’t know if the usually soft fabric of their suit was uncomfortable because of the sweat and blood or what, but either way he felt like taking his armor off. It wasn’t going to happen, because he was still fighting-  
“I’m done. Let’s blow this joint.”  
Lance had never been so blessed before hearing pidge said those words.  
With a grunt, and all the grace of a newborn whose parents really wanted to teach the baby how to walk and he is not going to fall Karen and then the newborn does in fact fall face first- point here is he stands up, and he might not have the best balance right now, probably due to blood loss or because he stood up to fast, little black dots dancing around his vision, he puts his all on setting the timer on the explosives and getting the fuck outta there.  
He doesn’t go straight to the red lion, a little disoriented and definetely not taking the right exit. He doesn’t know how he does it but he walks among thousand of galra hallways in purple lighting as fast as his feet can take him, and walks out into scorching sun. Suddenly he understands why his mami complained about him and his brothers having their room in complete darkness as he realizes one and only one thing.  
A truer fact than water being wet and that death was as unpredictable as it was unstoppable:  
Galra are fucking edgelords.  
He places a hand on one of the ruins that surrounded the base and hides so that the few galra and galra drones that actually managed to live don’t see him if they go out chasing after him. He is out of breath. How? He didn’t have any trouble when they walked from red to the galra base. Maybe it was because he took the wrong exit... yeah, that was why. Lance looks at his hand on the wall and realizes that there was a red print on it. He wondered if the handprint was his, or if it belonged to the natives of this planet. He felt like puking, suddenly overwhelmed just by the thought of the natives being slaughtered by the galra drones, panic and chaos like a second layer of dust and dirt on the walls.  
“Lance! Why aren’t you in red? Where are you?“  
Came Keith’s panicky voice through the comms.  
“I uh.. sorry, i got lost, probably took the wrong exit. I’ll be there in a few.”  
Lance forced himself to answer. So with all his might he did his best to walk in the scorching heat towards red, forgetting about the ruins and pressing his hand tightly against his bullet wound. Red might have made things easier for him, magically appearing out in front of him and opening her mouth to let him in.  
Which is just as well because he was starting to feel nauseous. Funny, lance had gone trough hotter days in Cuba without a heatstroke, but hey, maybe the sun in this planet was weird.  
Keith received him at the cabin.  
“Lance! What happened? I had to drive red to your place-“  
Keith looked so fucking gorgeous. He wondered what kind of face mask he was using because damn, No one can look that beautiful under layers of dirt and dried blood and then he chuckled because Keith was a heathen who didn’t use face masks, he was just naturally handsome.  
“Lance?”  
Keith’s voice had a hint of worry, but mostly it was just blurry. Really blurry, just like the controls on red, actually, everything was blurry, so if anyone who was messing with photoshop’s tools could like, stop doing that and un-blurr his vision, that would be great.  
Oh, also the floor wasn’t as comfortable as he thought it was going to be, a sharp pain going through his face when he fell. He probably should sleep it off, he didn’t have much say in that matter, however, because the world went black as he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I’m not that good at writing action, so feedback is welcomed. Kudos, too but you know, I appreciate what I can get. Also, who would have guessed I would write more than a one-shot for this dorks, am I right?


End file.
